


The January Resolution

by aeternamente



Category: Nothing Much to Do
Genre: M/M, lovelylittleficlets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-17
Updated: 2015-02-17
Packaged: 2018-03-13 11:12:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3379421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeternamente/pseuds/aeternamente
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pedro's not much of one for New Year's resolutions, but with Balthazar's birthday at the end of the month, he resolves to do something special for his boyfriend.</p><p>Askbox fic for Lovely Little Ficlets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The January Resolution

**Author's Note:**

> Finally finished the January Resolution! ...in mid-February. But it's done!

“5… 4… 3… 2… 1… Happy New Year!” the room cheered as one. Noisemakers went off. Toasts were made. Pedro didn’t know half the people his parents had invited to this party, but right now, he had his Balthy, so he didn’t much care. He let their new year’s kiss linger, then whispered “happy new year” into his ear.

“Goodbye 2014,” Balthazar said with a smile.

“I can drink to that!” Pedro laughed. “Hey, you wanna get out of here?” He nodded toward the door.

Balthy grinned. “Thought you’d never ask.”

“Got any resolutions for this year?” Balthazar asked as they sat on the steps of Pedro’s back porch, where they’d recently filmed a song about birds.

Pedro shrugged. “I never remember to keep resolutions for more than like a month.”

“Well you know my birthday’s at the end of the month.”

“That’s right, it is,” Pedro said, “hmm…”

“Hmm?” Balthazar asked. “What’s hmm?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Pedro deadpanned. “Nothing that has anything to do with you. Or your birthday.”

“Okay, just checking.”

“So what about you? Any resolutions?” Pedro asked.

Balthazar thought a second. “Think I’d like to learn clarinet. It’s supposed to be a bit harder than sax, but it’s got a nice color to it, you know?” He paused. “Also make sure to eat my breakfast every day.”

“Gotta start your day off right,” Pedro agreed solemnly.

“You’re teasing me,” Balthazar said, scrunching his nose in the most kissable way.

Pedro gave in and kissed his nose. Then his mouth. “Only because you’re cute when you’re annoyed.”

* * *

 

Pedro had been to Balthazar’s favorite music shop a few times before, accompanying him as he browsed the instruments, pointed out the ones he was saving up for, or picked up reeds or replacement strings. He knew the place, but he had to admit some trepidation at formally introducing himself to Sam, the shop owner. Balthy once admitted having a massive crush on him a few years back, and Pedro understood why.

How did he end up here? Never mind. Pedro knew exactly how he ended up here.

It had started in the giddy glow of those moments just after the new year, when writing a song for Balthazar within a month’s time seemed like a great idea. Totally doable.

Then the next day he visited both Bea and Ben to get ideas (because they’d written songs for each other), and both said the same thing: Balthy helped. But Ben loaned Pedro his ukulele, so he figured he’d do some research. He watched both song videos, trying to mimic what Balthy’s fingers were doing, but it sounded awful.

So here he was, asking for help from the only person he could think of besides Balthazar who could be of any help.

“You’re Pedro, right?” Sam asked with a smile. The guy looked seriously good in eyeliner. If Pedro could pull eyeliner off like that, he might wear eyeliner. “…can I help you?”

“Right,” Pedro shook his head and held up Ben’s ukulele. “Could you teach me how to play this?”

Sam quirked an eyebrow. “Couldn’t Balthazar?”

“It’s for Balthazar. A surprise.”

Sam grinned. “That’s adorable.”

Pedro tried not to blush. “So will you help me then?”

Sam seemed to be sizing Pedro up. “Okay,” he said, “so hypothetically, if I did help you, just what are you planning on doing with that ukulele? I want to know I’m associating myself with a quality endeavor.”

Pedro cleared his throat. “I was thinking… I kinda wanted to write a song for him? I mean I’m probably rubbish at writing songs—”

“You probably are. So you’ll definitely need my help with that.”

“You’ll do it then?”

“Yeah, I’ll do it.”

Pedro let out a sigh of relief and allowed his face to relax into a smile. Maybe, just maybe, he could pull this off after all. “Great!” he said. “When can—?”

He was cut off by the sound of the door opening behind him. “Hey Sam,” a familiar voice said, “you were right about the reeds, those 2 1/2s are a bit soft for me, do you—?” Balthazar stopped abruptly.

Pedro turned, feeling like he’d been caught red-handed at the scene of the crime.

“Pedro?” Balthazar asked. “What are you doing here?”

Pedro wasn’t sure why it hit him right then, but he was having one of those moments where Balthazar was the most beautiful person in the world. Like, he was magical or something. Pedro stepped forward and kissed his boyfriend right on the confused crease of his forehead.

“That’s great, I still don’t get what you’re doing here,” Balthazar said.

“You will,” Pedro answered with a grin. “Eventually.”

“What—?”

“Did you want to get some No. 3 reeds, then, Balthy?” Sam cut in from behind the counter.

Balthazar completed the purchase of two reeds, and Pedro followed him out, completely forgetting that he hadn’t confirmed any plans with Sam. Which may have been the reason for this ensuing text exchange.

Ursula: Sam Wilson just asked me for your number. Should I be worried?   
Pedro: no need to worry, it’s for a surprise for balthazar   
Ursula: Like a party? Why am I not planning this?   
Pedro: not a party, though that’s not a bad idea   
Ursula: Noted. Nothing fishy then?   
Pedro: nothing fishy I promise

* * *

 

“You know, you’d think that being able to strum a few chords on this thing would help me get ideas, but it really really doesn’t.” Pedro worked his fingers into all the proper positions Sam had taught him.

“Well I might need to kick you out soon, otherwise it might as well be a sleepover, and I don’t know how Balthy would feel about that,” Sam quipped.

Pedro shrugged. “Balthy wouldn’t care, but point taken.” He sighed. “I just don’t know how I’m ever going to come up with anything decent.”

“Okay, first of all, you don’t need to come up with the perfect thing right now. You’ve still got time,” Sam reassured him. “Second of all, you’re too focused on rhyming. You need to know what you want to say. Just—just start out by writing down how you feel about him. It doesn’t need to be pretty, we can make it pretty. For right now, it just needs to be true.”

“Any other advice, O Wise One?” Pedro joked.

Sam laughed. “Just that songwriting is like olives. You get used to it eventually.”

* * *

 

“Hey Pedro,” John entered Pedro’s room without knocking.

Pedro tried to hide his notebook—too late.

“What’s this?”

“Don’t you know how to knock?”

John read: “He’s really smart and funny. I could talk to him for hours. Aww is this about me?”

“Give that back!”

“I like kissing his—obviously not…”

“John, I swear to god—”

“Fine. What are you trying to do anyway?”

Pedro sighed. “I’m trying to write a song.”

John frowned. “It’s not very good.”

“I know it’s not! I’m just writing things down right now.”

Pedro ran his fingers through his hair, then petulantly tossed his notebook aside. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll never write anything good. I’m a terrible boyfriend.”

“Yes, you’re disgusting,” John deadpanned. “This is my disgusted face.”

Pedro shoved his brother. “Why are you here, anyway?”

“Ann says it’s time for dinner,” John said, “and now we’ve wasted all this time, she’s probably mad we’re not down yet.”

“Pedro? John?” Mum’s voice drifted up from downstairs as if on cue. “Are you coming?”

“Coming, Mum!” Pedro called as John made his retreat downstairs.

He looked down at the notebook.  _‘He always wears oversized clothes, which is adorable,’_  one of the lines read.  _‘I like his ears,’_  read another. All of these little things seemed insignificant to him now. He wanted to rip that page out and throw it in the trash. He was actually on the point of doing so when his mum called up the stairs again.

“Are you actually coming to dinner Pedro? Or should I give John your food?”

“Coming.”

At the dinner table, Pedro ignored his parents’ comments on how moodily he was chewing his chicken casserole. “Someone’s got an attack of the sullens,” Mum stage-whispered to Dad. This kind of comment could usually pull Pedro out of a funk, but right now he was too busy thinking.

Balthazar’s birthday at the end of the month was starting to feel a little too close now that the month was half over, and he was hardly any closer to a completed song than he’d been at the beginning of the month.

He resolved to come up with something tonight. To find at least one idea—an idea he could feel good about building a song around.

This decided, he gave up on the chicken casserole and excused himself from the table. Back in his room, he was on the point of tearing that page of ideas out of his notebook again, when one of the details caught his eye.  _‘He laughs a his own jokes.’_  Another little thing. And yes, Balthazar was more than just all these little things, but he liked the little things too.

* * *

 

“Eggs—check! What else is on the list?”

“Oh, um,” Balthazar unfolded the list his mum gave him. “Butter, and—I think that says granola?”

“Right-o! Butter’s over here!”

Balthazar laughed. “You’re in a good mood today.”

“I just had a breakthrough.”

“What kind of breakthrough?”

Pedro grinned. “Not telling.”

“I thought there weren’t any secrets between us?”

“There is a secret, and it will stay a secret for… oh, about two more weeks.”

Balthazar frowned, but soon caught on. “Oh. That kind of secret.”

He looked down at his list again. “Okay granola and… does that say ‘quack’?”

Pedro squinted at the list. “No you’re off by a letter—guac—good ol’ guacamole.”

“Ugh, Mum has the worst handwr—oh!” Pedro had looked up in time, but Balthazar walked right into Sam Wilson.

“Hey, Balthy—Pedro!” he greeted.

“Hey man, good to see you!” Pedro grinned. He wished he could telepathically communicate to Sam that he’d actually made progress on his song. Of course he couldn’t say anything with Balthazar here.

“Yeah, great to see you!” Sam said. “How’s it going?”

“It’s going great. Fantastic. Amazing.” Pedro enthused.

Sam blinked. “Okay, yeah, cool. Hey Balthy, how’s that new set of guitar strings working out for you?”

“Yeah, yeah good,” Balthazar muttered. Pedro looked at his boyfriend. He was staring at the ground and generally sending out this-situation-makes-me-uncomfortable vibes.

“Well, I should go,” Sam said. “See you guys later, okay?”

“Yeah, bro, see you around,” Pedro said distractedly.

They stood in the queue in silence, and headed for Balthy’s car in silence. Pedro hated silence.

“Hey, are you okay?” he asked, once they were on the road.

“Yeah, great. Fantastic. Amazing.”

“Balth…”

Balthazar sighed. “You do know you were flirting with Sam just now, right?”

“What?” Pedro laughed. Then realized that wasn’t an appropriate response. “No seriously, I wasn’t I was just—”

“You know,” Balthazar said, “sometimes I think flirting is just like… your default way of talking to people.”

Pedro sputtered. “No, I just—”

“I mean maybe you don’t realize it.”

“Balth, I wasn’t flirting—”

“How does he know that?”

“Because he knows we’re dating. And he knows how much you matter to me.”

Balthazar briefly shot Pedro a skeptical look before turning his eyes back to the road.

“It’s true! Look, I can’t explain everything right now but I promise you—hey why are we at my house? We got groceries for your mum.”

“I’m dropping you off. I just need time to think, okay?”

“But I—”

“Please.”

“…okay.”

* * *

 

“Do you think I’m always flirting with people?” Pedro laid his borrowed ukulele aside. He wasn’t sure he could make much more progress tonight.

“What does this have to do with the song?” Sam asked.

“No it’s just something Balthazar said that’s bugging me.”

“Is he upset with you?”

“Yeah… he thinks I was flirting with you at the store.”

“You did come on a bit strong.”

“I was excited about the song! Of course I can’t tell him that.” He ran his hands through his hair. “I just don’t know what do do.”

“Look this really isn’t my business, but seeing as this whole song we’re writing would be kinda useless if you guys didn’t work things out, I’ll just say this: it never hurts to apologize.”

Pedro sighed and stared downward. He saw the ukulele being nudged back into his lap.

“Now can we work on the bridge?” Sam asked. “I think I might have an idea…” “What kind of idea?” Pedro raised a skeptical eyebrow. He still wasn’t in much of a songwriting mood.

“Maybe we can work in some current events.”

* * *

 

Pedro knocked on Balthazar’s door (having been let in the house by Balthy’s sister Rosa). It had been two days since he’d seen his boyfriend, and as far as he was concerned, that was far too long. Knowing Balthazar was on the other side of that door, hearing him move around, made him feel a sharp, expectant ache inside.

Balthazar opened the door and looked up sheepishly. “I might have overre—”

“No. Nope,” Pedro interrupted. “You don’t get to apologize. I’m the one that needs to apologize.”

“Okay then.”

“Right,” Pedro said. “I shouldn’t have acted the way I did, and I’m sorry. I don’t want you to ever feel like  this relationship doesn’t matter to me, because it does. A lot.”

Balthazar smiled a small, inward smile. “You… you wanna come in?”

“Yeah.”

They settled down on the couch and were soon comfortably cuddling. “Pedro?” Balthazar said at length.

“Mmhmm?”

“I just wanted to say… I probably did overreact, at least a little.”

“I told you—”

“I know, I just… still want to explain.”

Pedro shifted so he could see Balthazar’s face. “Okay,” he said.

“I just,” Balthazar began, “I spent so long thinking you’d never want this… sometimes it’s still a bit hard to believe. And just seeing the way you were with Sam, I just thought… maybe you’d be better off with someone like him anyway, maybe—”

Pedro kissed him. Hearing Balthazar say things like this was almost painful, and he needed to set the record straight.

“I’m better off with you. Just you. Okay?”

Balthazar nodded. “Okay.”

* * *

 

Pedro had a pretty hands-off style of party planning. He’d provide the house, the food and drinks, some music, maybe a theme, then pretty much let everyone do whatever. Ursula’s parties, on the other hand, were like performance art, and Balthazar’s birthday was no exception.

One wall of her living room was covered in paper for people to write or draw whatever they wanted in tribute to Balthazar (who would then put it up in his room when he got to university to remember his Messina friends).

There was a game where everyone was given a name of someone else at the party, and you had to greet people in character as that person and see if they can guess who you are. Pedro had Hero, so he just went around saying nice things to people. Bea must’ve gotten Ben by some weird stroke of luck, and was loudly proclaiming of her love for tea and flamingos in a terrible British accent.

Then there was the open mic in the corner of the room. Ursula had set it up knowing about Pedro’s song. Balthazar had sung some of his own stuff at the mic. Bea and Ben were taking turns proposing increasingly extravagant toasts to Balthy’s inevitable future success. Pedro still had yet to sing his song. His jitters were getting the better of him, and he wondered if his song was really good enough.

Across the room, Sam caught his eye and jerked his head toward where the mic.

Pedro took a deep breath and approached the microphone, picking up Balthy’s ukulele that was on a little stand next to it.

“Hi everyone.” His voice sounded really loud. “Hey Balthazar. I wrote this for you. I hope you like it.”

He started strumming.

_I like your ears and eyes and nose and I like your smile  
I like it when you come around and stay for a while  
And you_ _’re more than all these little things_   
_But I like the little things too_

_I like it when you play guitar and write me a song  
Even if I maybe did interpret it wrong  
And you_ _’re more than all these little things_   
_But I like the little things too._

_You are more than just any friend  
You_ _’re my favorite person, nothing less_   
_If it seems like I smile too much_   
_Well that’s just me trying to express_

_How my life is better when I get to have you around  
I can_ _’t believe the happiness and love that I’ve found_   
_’Cause you’re more than all than all these little things_   
_But I like the little things too._

He finished the song and barely registered the applause. All he could see was the huge grin on Balthazar’s face. Pedro couldn’t help but grin himself.


End file.
